Tuesday, January 8, 2013

HAIFA, Israel (Fox News) – Palestinian leaders, who court international sympathy by portraying their people as displaced victims of Israel, are refusing to help tens of thousands of their brethren who have been routed from homes and refugee camps in neighboring Syria.

Leaders of both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have rebuffed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency's requests for help stemming the mushrooming humanitarian crisis brought on by Syria's bloody civil war. Their refusal to help leaves some 150,000 Syrian Palestinians homeless and facing freezing temperatures, missiles, bombs and food shortages.

“[The UNRWA is] the only one taking care of the refugees in Syria, but that’s not just now," Dr. Benedetta Berti, an international policy and security consultant and expert on Middle East affairs, told FoxNews.com. "The Palestinians have always deferred to the international community to provide for them (the refugees) so this is just business as usual."

Hamas Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh reportedly believes that seeking safe haven for Palestinians trapped in Syria could undermine his argument for a Palestinian ‘right of return’ to what they deem occupied Palestine -- the State of Israel. The same rationale appears be one of the contributing factors to a similar lack of action from Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority.